The Times wrote, “In a Wednesday statement, the Green Party slammed the ‘Nader spoiler’ allegation, referring to it as a ‘baseless Democratic Party propaganda myth,'” blaming Al Gore’s 2000 “defeat on a series of factors. … The party has urged supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernard Sanders to cross over to the Green candidate in November. Polls show as many as 25 percent of the Vermont senator’s backers say they would not vote for Ms. Clinton, the former secretary of state.”

The Green Party of the United states has responded to Stephen Colbert’s repeat of the “Nader spoiled” accusation during his May 18 CBS Late Show.

GPUS Co-Chair Paul Pipkin said, “When you look at the actual numbers in 2000, it becomes clear that the spoiler allegation is the Democratic equivalent of the right-wing fringe belief that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.” Fellow co-chair Audrey Clement added, “The biggest reason for Al Gore’s loss is that he ran a weak campaign, failing to win even in Tennessee, his home state. 13% of Florida Democrats voted for Bush instead of Gore — far more than those who voted for Ralph Nader — and nearly half of the state’s Democrats stayed home on Election Day.”

The Greens also corrected Colbert on his claim that Sen. Bernie Sanders “is now being courted by the Green Party to join their ticket” and noted that it would be nearly impossible, legally and logistically, for Mr. Sanders to launch a new campaign after the Democratic nomination. The party did say it has “invited Mr. Sanders to help promote the Green Party as a permanent independent alternative to the two corporate-money parties. Mr. Sanders has not responded.”

Maryland Green Party U.S. Senate candidate Margaret Flowers was among those on hand as two-time Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader opened the American Museum of Tort Law in his hometown of Winsted, Connecticut, on Sunday. In a New York Times interview before the museum opened Nader said “he hoped the museum would teach a new generation about the vital benefits of personal injury lawsuits and even, dare it be said, plaintiff lawyers.”

Two-time Green Party presidential nominee Ralph Nader spoke at Harvard Law School on Thursday, September 10.

An attendee said that during a question and answer period not shown in the recording above, Nader was asked about his “view of Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein as current progressive candidates.” Nader praised both, but criticized Sanders, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, on foreign policy.

Hawkins was polling 9% statewide even before a widely-praised debate performance, and has earned endorsements from a spectrum of people and organizations, including Ralph Nader, Seattle socialist city council member Kshama Sawant, education analyst Diane Ravitch, and former Mobil Oil VP-turned-renewable energy activist Lou Allstadt; as well as Albany weekly paper Metroland, 6 teachers’ unions, 6 Democratic Party clubs, Socialist Alternative, and a number of groups leading the fight against school privatization, such as United Opt Out and the New York Badass Teacher Association. See the growing list of endorsements for Howie Hawkins here.

Matt Funiciello has polled as high as 14% in a 3-way race for Congress that has attracted millions of outside dollars to his Democratic and Republican opponents. Funiciello recently earned the endorsements of three sizable newspapers in New York’s North Country: the Glens Falls Post-Star, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, and the Glens Falls Chronicle.

We hope you will support one of the Green Party’s most exciting and important races in 2014 – Howie Hawkins for Governor of New York.www.howiehawkins.org

People and planet before profits. New York leads the country in income disparity and segregation of schools and housing by race and class. Howie’s campaign is focused on climate action, jobs, education reform, criminal justice reform, civil rights, and an end to corruption. It has been profiled as one of the cutting edge third party campaigns combining an ecological and economic justice agenda.

Four years ago Howie surpassed the 50,000 vote threshold needed for the Greens to regain official party status. Due to his 3rd place finish out of seven candidates and recent close losses for local office in Syracuse, the media is taking him and the Green Party far more seriously this time.

Howie has been polling at 7% and has generated hundreds of news stories in his efforts to oppose the economic austerity agenda of Andrew Cuomo. Three other polls have shown that an independent progressive challenger to Cuomo would receive between 22% and 24%, equal to the Republican and only 13 to 15 percentage points behind Cuomo.

If we can get the word out to New York voters that Howie is the only progressive on the general election ballot, we can establish the Green Party in New York as the third major party and the voice of progressives who are independent of the corporate oligarchy and its representatives in the Democratic and Republican parties.

That kind of result will help Greens across the country be taken seriously as the progressive alternative to corporate politics. Continue Reading →

Citizen advocate Ralph Nader will be in Albany and Glens Falls on Sunday, September 14th to campaign for New York Green Party candidates Howie Hawkins (Governor), Matt Funiciello (US House of Representatives District 21), and Theresa Portelli (Comptroller).

It’s hard to imagine a better time to consider parties other than the Democratic and Republican. In the sixteen days that the federal government was shut down and thousands of employees were furloughed or asked to work without pay, Washington demonstrated its inability to put people first, but for the first time. Continue Reading →

WASHINGTON, DC — The Green Party of the United States is calling for passage of legislation to impose a “Wall Street transaction tax,” which will stabilize the stock market, discourage reckless ‘casino’ trading, and generate revenue.

As Ralph Nader noted in his endorsement of the bill, “A small financial transaction tax of 0.5 percent or less – depending upon the financial instrument being taxed – could produce hundreds of billions of dollars annually, perhaps as much as $350 billion. This revenue could be generated from a tax that would be minuscule – half a penny or less on each dollar of the transaction value.” (https://www.facebook.com/ralphnader/posts/559074687456801) Continue Reading →

MACHIAS, ME – Maine Superior Court Justice Kevin M. Cuddy ruled on September 20, 2012 that a lawsuit filed by consumer advocate and 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and his Maine electors Christopher Droznick, Nancy Oden and Rosemary Whittaker against the Democratic Party and several of its allies must proceed to trial.

Background:

Originally filed in 2009, the lawsuit alleges tort claims under Maine law for civil conspiracy, abuse of process and malicious prosecution. The plaintiffs allege that Democrats orchestrated a concerted, nationwide effort to interfere with the campaign of Nader and his running mate, the late Peter Miguel Camejo, by filing 29 complaints in 19 states, including Maine, and that many of the complaints included groundless and demonstrably false allegations of fraud.

According to defendant Toby Moffett, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist who helped recruit an estimated 95 lawyers from 53 law firms to join the effort, the purpose of the Democrats’ complaints was to “drain,” “distract” and “neutralize” the Nader-Camejo campaign, by “forcing [them] to spend money and resources defending these things.”

In addition to Moffett, the lawsuit names as defendants the Maine Democratic Party, its former Chair Dorothy Melanson, the Democratic National Committee, its former Chair Terry McAuliffe, the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign and a Section 527 political organization Moffett headed called The Ballot Project.

Nader says:

“Former Governor Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party and former Congressman Virgil Goode of the Constitution Party are now facing what the Nader-Camejo campaign confronted in 2004,” Nader added. “Both the Democratic and the Republican parties treat the electoral process and the voters as if they own them, and they will continue to do so until Americans of all political persuasions put a stop to it by demanding a broader choice of candidates on the ballot in each election cycle.”